Delazon Smith

Delazon Smith (5 October 1816-19 November 1860) was a US Senator from Oregon (D) from 14 February to 4 March 1859, preceding Edward Dickinson Baker.

Biography
Delazon Smith was born in New Berlin, New York in 1816, and he became a lawyer in 1837. In 1838, he established his own newspaper in Rochester, and he founded the Western Empire in Dayton, Ohio in 1841. From 1842 to 1845, he served as a US commissioner to Quito, Ecuador, and he moved to the Iowa Territory in 1846 and became a minister. In 1852, he moved to the Oregon Territory and began editing the Oregon Democrat, a Democratic Party newspaper. He served in the territorial house of representatives and was also one of Oregon's inaugural pair of US Senators, but he lost for re-election and died in 1860.